Sharon-Barak Alliance Stirs Widespread Outrage

Last week, he suffered the biggest defeat in Israeli political history and announced his retirement. On Friday, outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Barak was ready to join the incoming Israeli government, and the outcry was deafening.

Barak was attacked from the left and the right. Part of his own center-left party was horrified at the thought of hooking up with the hawkish prime minister-elect, Ariel Sharon. And part of Sharon’s right-wing Likud Party was incensed that the loser Barak had been invited.

But most of the derision was directed at Barak for his inclination to “zigzag”--to change his mind on critical decisions and go back on promises. Many here say that tendency contributed to his recent defeat because loyal supporters felt confused and betrayed. He was no longer credible.

At a meeting in Tel Aviv on Friday of activists from Labor and the leftist Meretz Party, Barak had to shout over hecklers to be heard. “Barak, zigzag!” they screamed.

“Not just a zigzag, but a back flip with a double twist,” is how the liberal newspaper Haaretz put it Friday. Haaretz had enthusiastically backed Barak in his race against Sharon.

Sharon offered Labor two of the three top ministries: defense, foreign affairs and finance. Despite having presided over the last 4 1/2 months of Israeli-Palestinian violence, Barak is expected to fill the defense post, and Labor elder statesman Shimon Peres would be foreign minister.

As Likud and Labor continued to work out the details, the urgency of forming a government was brought into clearer focus Friday: On Israel’s border with Lebanon, Islamic Hezbollah guerrillas blasted an Israeli army convoy with antitank rockets, killing one soldier and wounding at least two others. Israel retaliated by firing at suspected guerrilla hide-outs in southern Lebanon.

The flare-up took place in disputed territory that has been a sore point since Israel withdrew from Lebanon last summer, ending its two-decade occupation.

A spokesman for Sharon said he expects the new government to be ready to assume office as early as next week.

Barak’s decision to enter a so-called national unity government with Sharon could cause a formal rupture in the Labor Party, Israel’s largest political faction and one of its oldest. A bruising battle awaits the party next week when it meets to approve the Sharon-Barak deal.

The party will likely emerge fragmented, bitter and bereft of any ability to be a counterbalancing force, analysts say.

Some in Labor said Friday that they will oppose the deal.

Haim Ramon, Barak’s public security minister and a potential rival for leadership of the party, said he will refuse to join the unity government if Barak remains in charge. A politician who brought the party and the country to its worst predicament ever has no business continuing at the helm of anything, Ramon said.

“Ehud Barak is now going to the Defense Ministry, another place he also failed?” Ramon said. “Only his reverberating failure as prime minister is worse than his failure as defense minister. . . . Ehud Barak must do what he said 10 days ago: take a break from politics. He said he deserves this, as does [wife] Nava. We deserve it too.”

Barak, speaking at the Tel Aviv meeting, defended his “painful” change of heart.

“The emotions say leave, but the mind says this must be considered seriously,” he told the resentful crowd. “The private voice says leave, but my understanding of national interests says stay. Now, of all times.”

Sharon sought out Barak and Labor to give his government a more moderate image, and to provide political cover if he decides to crack down on the Palestinians’ armed uprising with greater military force, as is expected.

Without Labor in a coalition government, it would difficult for Sharon to obtain a stable majority in parliament, and his own government probably would not last until the next general election in 2003.

Barak needs the job to be able to stage a political comeback. He cannot achieve it from within Labor, where he has become somewhat of a pariah.

It remained unclear how Barak and Sharon can reconcile their very different attitudes toward making peace with the Palestinians.

Barak campaigned on an approach that offered concessions in the interest of a final, comprehensive settlement. Sharon has already said that he will seek limited, interim agreements instead and that he will not cede much land to the Palestinians nor dismantle Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Despite overwhelming public support for a unity government, as reflected in a poll Friday, such fractious alliances have often been a recipe for paralysis. Israeli commentators were almost unanimous in their condemnation of an alliance that they said mocked the will of the voters.

“The outcome is a lame, almost farcical government,” leading columnist Nahum Barnea wrote. “Its defense minister will be the man most voters got sick of because of the security situation; its foreign minister will be the man who masterminded a peace process most voters have despaired over. . . . Barak will kill Palestinians for Sharon, and Peres will receive their spite in his stead. All for our children’s future.”

Palestinian officials, who accuse Barak of unleashing brute force to quell the uprising, said they see a “black future” with the emerging government. They said they’re afraid that Barak will be eager to take revenge on them for helping to bring about his electoral downfall. With the “two generals” in cahoots, they said, the pursuit of peace is definitely over.

“We believe that this government is a government of war,” said Ahmed Hiless, a leader of the Palestinian Fatah movement.